I thought it was pretty obvious, the issue is that organized scalping artificially inflates prices and as such prevents people of having a fair chance at purchasing a ticket.
And in the mean while preventing others from even getting a chance at buying a ticket.
Don't forget that ticket sale systems work with queues, if these queues get hit by thousands of connections as soon as the sale opens you the individual have less chance to get a good place on the queue or even reaching the servers, no individual can match the connectivity of large scale scalpers and as a result are prevented form buying the ticket at current market value because of this, compare it to a gang blocking access to a venue, you have to wait for the gang to leave, and hope the venue still has anything to sell you, or buy from the gang for the price of a small kidney.
The problem with (digital) scalping is that the organized scalper will swamp the servers with thousands of connections at once, thus preventing many honest customers from getting a ticket or even to be able to connect to the servers.
It's like if you're wanting to goto a venue to buy some food & finding all the entries blocked by a gang, you can eighter buy the food from the gang for insanely inflated prices, or hope the gang leaves before the stock is gone completely.
Not just revenue lost by Ticketmaster (actually, i doubt that, because artists will also impose an upper limit on ticket prices) and less money spent on merchandise.
The problem is, the amount of resources to make said tires (in this case, the artists) is limited, if they have already committed to perform x times in country y in year z, it's very unlikely you'll get them to come back to perform yet another number of concerts in country y in year z
Basically, you'd set up a company & find out that there's no resources available (due to lack of funds, the resources being signed up with other companies,...), so you'll have no tires to sell, or maybe some tires nobody wants
They already limit the amount of tickets per person, fat load of good that'll do you when an organized scalper comes along with thousand different id's & computers, they'll still swamp the queue preventing the real customer from getting a ticket.
Membership cards and truly random 'human present?' checks would go a long way, they already charge a service fee, so they could include a "free" membership card in those costs, you only need one per customer & a lot of people see more then once concert in their lives
The analogy isn't completely correct, basically the scalpers (the ones in TFA) are so organized that they basically prevent other customers from purchasing any tickets at all, because they swamp the servers with thousands of connections at once as soon as the booth opens, if you don't happen to be a split second faster then their botnets you might not get a ticket at normal price, now, i don't know about you, but my home internet connection has a lot more latency then my server in a datacenter, beating a whole botnet is unlikely, you just have to hope there are still some tickets left when their botnet stops buying them.
Okay, let's try this simple car analogy, this is slashdot after all:
Imagine you need to buy new tires for your car, and there is only one chain that sells tires at a reasonable (fixed) price, so you go to their shop, only to find an organization swamped their store preventing you access & bought the whole supply so they no longer have any tires.
Now, you and a lot of other people still need tires, so you check online, and lo & behold, the tires that normally cost $25 at the official chain now suddenly are sold for $500, you now have a choice, do you buy these or do you give up on riding?
Off course, this analogy doesn't cover the fact that the organization committed several acts of fraud & other nasties (read TFA), but it does illustrate the core issue, is it fair that an organization buys out a stock knowing fully that any individual doesn't have the necessary means to compete with them for the same item, the organization is so big, they literally block the entrance to the chain for individuals (in TFA they mention a game where they had 824 of the 1000 available tickets).
Yes, i want ID checks at the entry, the privacy implication is minimal, and frecking worth it if it kills scalpers.
The way you suggested would also stop me from going to see concerts, because it's not a fair system, it would prevent a lot of fans from actually being able to see their idols because they won't be able to afford it, there is a reason why the face prices are fixed.
I disagree, they committed fraud and various other less then legal trickery to basically defraud valid customers by preventing them the chance to actually buy a ticket.
Don't forget that the number of available seats at concerts & sports events is limited, by using botnets (their own computers or hijacked ones) they prevent honest customers from actually getting a place on the queue and the honest customer is forced with the option to buy a ticket with a scalper or to stay home, it's about bloody time they start enforcing ID checks so that scalpers can be liquidated (literally is also fine) for once & for all
In the past, you could beat the hobo's to a ticket because you could simply go camp at the sales point, with the internet, you no longer have that possibility, and scalping tickets needs to be eradicated.
Sure, it's possible it was just a high number of people trying to access the site.... 48 hours before ticket sale starts till the moment the tickets were sold out, but I'm kind of skeptical of that, given tickets were being offered on other places within seconds of sales beginning for 10 to 20x the official price
It makes sense in a way, for some concerts you can be pretty damn sure you can resell tickets for 5 to 25x the official price easily, couple this with a lack of ID check at the venue's, the fact that it's a legal gray area in most places and the lack of motivation for ticket resellers to actually block this (they still get their money) it's unlikely this will change soon, and if you have the skill to exploit the system, you can make a lot of money very fast, as evidenced by TFA
And it's not like you can't prevent this, there are ways you can do that, and they're pretty damn easy.
The problem in Belgium & the Netherlands is that, while tickets are on a name, there is no ID check whatsoever (however, they did do that for the AC/DC concert last year), the problem is, the people who want to see the concert are prevented by the scalpers to even get a ticket
Impersonating a person, resale of tickets where (commercial) resale is illegal, fraud, illegal use of computer resources (botnets) and pissed of alot of people who actually wanted to buy tickets but were unable to.
When AC/DC toured last year these asses their botnets overloaded the official ticketsale sites preventing any real customer to even access them, in Belgium the sites were unreachable 2 days before the sale even started.
If i had my way, ticket scalpers would be scalped for real.
My HTC once litterally drowned while under (battery) power, it was completely garbled, started rebooting, shaking, flickering, all sorts of weird stuff.
Removed the battery & dried it in my car by putting it on the grill in the dashboard, and it worked again, but the buttons were still foobarred.
Came home & took it apart, then took the buttons apart & cleared all the hunk in them, and lo & behold, it's as good as new, it took me 2 hours of labour to fix it completely, but those two hours were still less expensive then replacing it:)
I can't comment on US laws & how broad or narrow these are, but in Europe it's not so clear cut (and not well known neighter), taking a picture of the Atomium in Belgium for instance, and reselling that (even if there are other things in the picture) will get you in trouble with Sabam (whom are the same leeches as the ones terrorizing people for using movies or music), because the building is 'copyrighted', even though the building is located in plain sight. In Paris it's forbidden to take commercial pictures of the Eiffel tower by night.
While you can use pictures you take in public as you see fit, the items displayed on said pictures (people, buildings, even objects like cars etc) are protected by law.
I don't know which of my friends has an iPhone or not, nor would i even think about the possible lack for flash on their phone when sending an email with a frecking link, if they can't view it on their phone they'll view it later on their PC, how you can jump to the conclusion that it's corporatist control because of this is beyond me.
iPhone users get what they pay for, a nice shiney (severely) locked down phone, and i can't see why any technically inclined intelligent person would get one of those, i'll take function over form.
Let me start of by saying i don't own an iPhone & care little about the stupid phones, but i just wanted to react to your list of sites there, none of those are sites i've visited or care about, same for 'flash games sites'.
The only flash heavy sites i use are Oracle's Metalink & youtube Clearly your mileage may very
Slashdot Mirror
I thought it was pretty obvious, the issue is that organized scalping artificially inflates prices and as such prevents people of having a fair chance at purchasing a ticket.
And in the mean while preventing others from even getting a chance at buying a ticket.
Don't forget that ticket sale systems work with queues, if these queues get hit by thousands of connections as soon as the sale opens you the individual have less chance to get a good place on the queue or even reaching the servers, no individual can match the connectivity of large scale scalpers and as a result are prevented form buying the ticket at current market value because of this, compare it to a gang blocking access to a venue, you have to wait for the gang to leave, and hope the venue still has anything to sell you, or buy from the gang for the price of a small kidney.
Oh, and they broke the law too.
The problem with (digital) scalping is that the organized scalper will swamp the servers with thousands of connections at once, thus preventing many honest customers from getting a ticket or even to be able to connect to the servers.
It's like if you're wanting to goto a venue to buy some food & finding all the entries blocked by a gang, you can eighter buy the food from the gang for insanely inflated prices, or hope the gang leaves before the stock is gone completely.
Not just revenue lost by Ticketmaster (actually, i doubt that, because artists will also impose an upper limit on ticket prices) and less money spent on merchandise.
The problem is, the amount of resources to make said tires (in this case, the artists) is limited, if they have already committed to perform x times in country y in year z, it's very unlikely you'll get them to come back to perform yet another number of concerts in country y in year z
Basically, you'd set up a company & find out that there's no resources available (due to lack of funds, the resources being signed up with other companies,...), so you'll have no tires to sell, or maybe some tires nobody wants
Next time it generates ableoo through the same algorithm, the file generated might just be identical to the other one....
Print the owners name on the frecking ticket.
They already limit the amount of tickets per person, fat load of good that'll do you when an organized scalper comes along with thousand different id's & computers, they'll still swamp the queue preventing the real customer from getting a ticket.
Membership cards and truly random 'human present?' checks would go a long way, they already charge a service fee, so they could include a "free" membership card in those costs, you only need one per customer & a lot of people see more then once concert in their lives
No they were not, read the frecking article.
The analogy isn't completely correct, basically the scalpers (the ones in TFA) are so organized that they basically prevent other customers from purchasing any tickets at all, because they swamp the servers with thousands of connections at once as soon as the booth opens, if you don't happen to be a split second faster then their botnets you might not get a ticket at normal price, now, i don't know about you, but my home internet connection has a lot more latency then my server in a datacenter, beating a whole botnet is unlikely, you just have to hope there are still some tickets left when their botnet stops buying them.
Okay, let's try this simple car analogy, this is slashdot after all:
Imagine you need to buy new tires for your car, and there is only one chain that sells tires at a reasonable (fixed) price, so you go to their shop, only to find an organization swamped their store preventing you access & bought the whole supply so they no longer have any tires.
Now, you and a lot of other people still need tires, so you check online, and lo & behold, the tires that normally cost $25 at the official chain now suddenly are sold for $500, you now have a choice, do you buy these or do you give up on riding?
Off course, this analogy doesn't cover the fact that the organization committed several acts of fraud & other nasties (read TFA), but it does illustrate the core issue, is it fair that an organization buys out a stock knowing fully that any individual doesn't have the necessary means to compete with them for the same item, the organization is so big, they literally block the entrance to the chain for individuals (in TFA they mention a game where they had 824 of the 1000 available tickets).
Yes, i want ID checks at the entry, the privacy implication is minimal, and frecking worth it if it kills scalpers.
The way you suggested would also stop me from going to see concerts, because it's not a fair system, it would prevent a lot of fans from actually being able to see their idols because they won't be able to afford it, there is a reason why the face prices are fixed.
Sure, if you consider fraud to be legal
I disagree, they committed fraud and various other less then legal trickery to basically defraud valid customers by preventing them the chance to actually buy a ticket.
Don't forget that the number of available seats at concerts & sports events is limited, by using botnets (their own computers or hijacked ones) they prevent honest customers from actually getting a place on the queue and the honest customer is forced with the option to buy a ticket with a scalper or to stay home, it's about bloody time they start enforcing ID checks so that scalpers can be liquidated (literally is also fine) for once & for all
In the past, you could beat the hobo's to a ticket because you could simply go camp at the sales point, with the internet, you no longer have that possibility, and scalping tickets needs to be eradicated.
Sure, it's possible it was just a high number of people trying to access the site.... 48 hours before ticket sale starts till the moment the tickets were sold out, but I'm kind of skeptical of that, given tickets were being offered on other places within seconds of sales beginning for 10 to 20x the official price
It makes sense in a way, for some concerts you can be pretty damn sure you can resell tickets for 5 to 25x the official price easily, couple this with a lack of ID check at the venue's, the fact that it's a legal gray area in most places and the lack of motivation for ticket resellers to actually block this (they still get their money) it's unlikely this will change soon, and if you have the skill to exploit the system, you can make a lot of money very fast, as evidenced by TFA
And it's not like you can't prevent this, there are ways you can do that, and they're pretty damn easy.
The problem in Belgium & the Netherlands is that, while tickets are on a name, there is no ID check whatsoever (however, they did do that for the AC/DC concert last year), the problem is, the people who want to see the concert are prevented by the scalpers to even get a ticket
Impersonating a person, resale of tickets where (commercial) resale is illegal, fraud, illegal use of computer resources (botnets) and pissed of alot of people who actually wanted to buy tickets but were unable to.
When AC/DC toured last year these asses their botnets overloaded the official ticketsale sites preventing any real customer to even access them, in Belgium the sites were unreachable 2 days before the sale even started.
If i had my way, ticket scalpers would be scalped for real.
My HTC once litterally drowned while under (battery) power, it was completely garbled, started rebooting, shaking, flickering, all sorts of weird stuff. :)
Removed the battery & dried it in my car by putting it on the grill in the dashboard, and it worked again, but the buttons were still foobarred.
Came home & took it apart, then took the buttons apart & cleared all the hunk in them, and lo & behold, it's as good as new, it took me 2 hours of labour to fix it completely, but those two hours were still less expensive then replacing it
Don't worry, anything older then 150 years is fair game ;)
I can't comment on US laws & how broad or narrow these are, but in Europe it's not so clear cut (and not well known neighter), taking a picture of the Atomium in Belgium for instance, and reselling that (even if there are other things in the picture) will get you in trouble with Sabam (whom are the same leeches as the ones terrorizing people for using movies or music), because the building is 'copyrighted', even though the building is located in plain sight. In Paris it's forbidden to take commercial pictures of the Eiffel tower by night.
Dude, actually, no.
While you can use pictures you take in public as you see fit, the items displayed on said pictures (people, buildings, even objects like cars etc) are protected by law.
"all of Microsoft's worldwide licensing revenues of approximately $20.7 billion annually are taxable at .484 percent"
:(
My income taxes in Belgium are about 55%
I don't know which of my friends has an iPhone or not, nor would i even think about the possible lack for flash on their phone when sending an email with a frecking link, if they can't view it on their phone they'll view it later on their PC, how you can jump to the conclusion that it's corporatist control because of this is beyond me.
iPhone users get what they pay for, a nice shiney (severely) locked down phone, and i can't see why any technically inclined intelligent person would get one of those, i'll take function over form.
Let me start of by saying i don't own an iPhone & care little about the stupid phones, but i just wanted to react to your list of sites there, none of those are sites i've visited or care about, same for 'flash games sites'.
The only flash heavy sites i use are Oracle's Metalink & youtube
Clearly your mileage may very